Girls, Girls, Girls! Fix the Diva's Division, Please!

I loved women's wrestling when I was a girl. It was great to see women, both beautiful and.. um... beautiful on the inside *ahem*, kicking some serious ass. As the only girl with three brothers and a terribly sexist prick of a father it was nice to have women to look up to in my favorite sport.
I know there was still a lot of sexism in it but the women actually had talent and there were a variety of ladies look up to, not just these plastic dolls with cookie cutter personalities that we have now.

This Diva's division is embarrassing and insulting from the name, to the talent, to their joke of a reality show. If I had a daughter I would be embarrassed that this is what she had to look up to. It's like watching Barbie: Life in the Dream House only with a couple "fights" thrown in.

There is something really sad about the fact that WWE obviously wants to have really hot girls that their male viewers will enjoy watching yet more often than not I notice they consider their matches as piss breaks even more than I do.

It's my understanding that there is some good talent in NXT. The Diva's roster is practically non-existent so why not move these girls up and then start looking for a few more diverse ladies to really fill it out over time and build up a REAL Women's Division. Bring Awesome Kong back, or others like her who know what they are doing and care about something other than flashing their crotch at the camera as they take five minutes to bend over and get through the ropes.

As I've been out of the loop for a while and may not have all of my facts straight I would appreciate some opinions on how you guys feel about this.

Legend

IMO it's hard to fix the diva's division, one because not a lot of fans give a shit about that division to begin with and the company itself knows that they could make money even without them.. I would like to imagine that when Charlotte in the NXT gets called up to the big leagues things will start looking up again.

I agree with the 'E needing to bring someone in like Kharma/Kong but I just don't think they're going to, the last one closest to that they had was Tamina Snuka and that worked for awhile but then you just kinda got tired of seeing her on TV.

AJ, Paige & Charlotte will be nice for the Diva's Division once they're all three in the picture together, Bella twins are way over exposed which aesthetically is nice but they rarely put on entertaining matches.

If you're craving Divas action I would totally just watch NXT they have some awesome lady matches there.

I agree completely. I don't understand the point in pointing on ring gear and only being out there for a matter of two minutes (And that's including their entrance time.). Since AJ has been on the sidelines it's almost as if they have lost their golden ticket. so now they will just throw the title whoever they feel is more popular. So they hand it over to Nikki Bella, Drop the Bella storyline, bury Paige and continue this Total Divas shit that is only numbing the brains of those who watch it. (Seriously, I can't sit through any of the episodes anymore... )

It's sort of turning into a reality TV freakshow when it comes to the females of WWE, which is partly the reason why i don't want any of the NXT women to move. The last thing we need is a mess up with those women like they messed up with Emma and Paige.

Legend

The division is so far past being a joke by now. At this point I'd rather they just drop the division altogether and those of us who appreciate female wrestling seek it out elsewhere (Shimmer, AIW etc.) I can't take a division seriously when the champ is not even that good in ring.
Can these women who have no passion in being a wrestler (as an actual career) not get other jobs out of ring and let the talented ladies shine? That's half of the problem.

Also, It seems to be a vicious cycle where the product is utter garbage, so people don't care- then the WWE think they don't have to improve it since nobody cares.

Legend

Women's wrestling doesn't make money. 9 out of 10 fans watching at home or live don't want to see it. I've said it before, women's wrestling logically shouldn't be a thing, really. There isn't much of a market for it. A very tiny niche market I suppose, but if you fall into that category check out one of the women's promotions that @Snowman assures me are so great.

I made a big thread a while back on why WWE should stop pretending to care about women's wrestling and go back to using them like they did in the 80s/early 90s and just have them around as GFs/Valets that can be used to advance a storyline, can't find it now doe.

Let's be real, someone like Miss Elizabeth being involved in a Hogan/Macho feud brought more eyes to WWF than any females actually wrestling ever did.

Legend

Women's wrestling doesn't make money. 9 out of 10 fans watching at home or live don't want to see it. I've said it before, women's wrestling logically shouldn't be a thing, really. There isn't much of a market for it. A very tiny niche market I suppose, but if you fall into that category check out one of the women's promotions that @Snowman assures me are so great.

I made a big thread a while back on why WWE should stop pretending to care about women's wrestling and go back to using them like they did in the 80s/early 90s and just have them around as GFs/Valets that can be used to advance a storyline, can't find it now doe.

Let's be real, someone like Miss Elizabeth being involved in a Hogan/Macho feud brought more eyes to WWF than any females actually wrestling ever did.

I'd love to see a serious women's division, but the general audience just doesn't seem to much care for it, and they've been fed with the idea of the division meaning so little for so long that it'd be incredibly difficult to break that perception now.

I agree that women should just be used as valets, ring announcers, backstage interviewers and such. Total Divas proves that the company doesn't think their biggest usage is in the ring anyway, and even TD is costing the company money from what I hear. Keep the ring gear in the closet unless they work the occasional cat fight or mixed tag match or such.

WWE hasn't bothered to give the audience a reason to invest.
However, it doesn't help when the Kelly Kelly's and Eve Torres' of the world keep leaving to become mom's or wives.
The 2002-2005 era worked, in part, because those 'divas' put off retirement for as long as they could. They were dependable and did exactly as they were told.
These days, it's all about presentation and stupid poses. Why listen to guys like Finlay backstage when all you want is to be seen as 'hawt'.

Vince won't bother finding 'lifers' anymore because they all retire at 27 anyway to do something else. Why invest? Most of them have the attention span of a walnut, so why not milk their youth and let them become mommy.

Legend

If you loved women's wrestling you would support Shimmer/Joshi promotions instead of putting false hope into something which is at the very bottom and always will of wwe agenda. wwe is a promotion mainly for men performers and fans, women's wrestling is a niche market that has always been used as filler/perv intentions in major mens promotions. You make out that we used to get 5 star Manami Toyota classics which never happened.

Also you say you do not want sexism in the womens area of wrestling let you have a avatar a 15 year old schoolboy would have, are you really a female?

Legend

It'd be interesting if they did a main roster divas division that was actually good to watch, as NXT's. I'm not sure whether it'll draw or not, but I for one would enjoy watching and it's not like they'd be taking time away from a marvelous midcard or anything like that.

Legend

Thing is: There's a market for it - it's debatable how small it is - and WWE has 3 hours to kill. If you don't care about womens' wrestling and never will? Fine, as long as it's not a detriment to your enjoyment of the show like it currently is.

I'm with Majour with the quickest fix: Kill the division... at least temporarily. Keep some girls around as valets if you want, but just rip the womens' matches off TV after Wrestlemania. The fans will remember whenever they're sitting through the undercard garbage of the show, and during the doldrums of the summertime, the discussion will constantly come up (hell, it is now). "Remember when the Divas were here instead of Adam Rose vs Fandango? We may not have cared but... Ya know, they are awesome on NXT and half-naked women, that's better than this!"

Eventually bring it back with SERIOUS vignettes. Good WWE video packages, with an emphasis on competition. Push the quality talent with serious storylines with enough time to at least make an attempt to make the fans feel like there's something actually worth watching going on in the ring (Seriously, why would you treat ANYTHING on your own show like it isn't worth watching?). No more "chick" storylines, treat them like regular people. Emphasize some of the stuff you can do with women and not with men - see Bayley and Sasha. Give Cameron, Eva Marie, and Rosa their walking papers.

The problem is, from there, we venture into the "yeah it's not like the guys don't have these problems too lol" section.

Legend

Thing is: There's a market for it - it's debatable how small it is - and WWE has 3 hours to kill. If you don't care about womens' wrestling and never will? Fine, as long as it's not a detriment to your enjoyment of the show like it currently is.

I'm with Majour with the quickest fix: Kill the division... at least temporarily. Keep some girls around as valets if you want, but just rip the womens' matches off TV after Wrestlemania. The fans will remember whenever they're sitting through the undercard garbage of the show, and during the doldrums of the summertime, the discussion will constantly come up (hell, it is now). "Remember when the Divas were here instead of Adam Rose vs Fandango? We may not have cared but... Ya know, they are awesome on NXT and half-naked women, that's better than this!"

Eventually bring it back with SERIOUS vignettes. Good WWE video packages, with an emphasis on competition. Push the quality talent with serious storylines with enough time to at least make an attempt to make the fans feel like there's something actually worth watching going on in the ring (Seriously, why would you treat ANYTHING on your own show like it isn't worth watching?). No more "chick" storylines, treat them like regular people. Emphasize some of the stuff you can do with women and not with men - see Bayley and Sasha. Give Cameron, Eva Marie, and Rosa their walking papers.

The problem is, from there, we venture into the "yeah it's not like the guys don't have these problems too lol" section.

Click to expand...

I think a problem with letting women get more serious matches and angles is a lot of people don't want to see violent shit happening by/to women. I know it is why I don't really enjoy women's MMA. So if you have serious storylines leading to matches being worked like men work them, no thank you. I don't want to see spots or bumps involving chicks, I'm just going to find myself more worried for their well being. I can recall specifically the feeling seeing some of the brutal bumps between Taryn and Gail in their series of matches.

That said, Bubba Ray power bombing May Young through a table is one of my favorite things ever, so maybe I'm just trippin

Legend

There is a segment of the audience that wants to see good women wrestling. I don't know how sizable it is (I'm not running a focus group on the subject either).

The first step you have to take if you want to fix the problem is to solidify the line between Diva valets and Diva in-ring performers (not saying you can't have a "catfight" or something between valets or even valets and in-ring performers, but a non Divas wrestler carrying the title is not really something you want). Some of the Divas should be wrestling (AJ, Paige, Nattie, Brie, Alicia), but others should just be valets (Nikki, Cameron, Eva Marie). There's nothing wrong with that role. As D'Z mentioned earlier, it can be a very profitable one and they could benefit other talent by acting like managers. Look at Lana....okay, now stop staring, that's creepy. But, she's come into the WWE and acted purely as a valet and she's done very well. In fact, I think she needs to expand her "client base", but I've thought the use of valets/managers has been really hurt in the modern era and I also think that the only way to get back to having good managers is to have more than two or three of them.

Right now, Nattie is walking Cesaro/Kidd to the ring and it's working well. She's one of the few that really can put on a good match but she can play both roles well. She would be one of the exceptions.

Once you've put the belt on somebody who can wrestle and wrestle well (I'd put it back on AJ or Paige....or have Charlotte pull the same kind of thing Paige did last year and show up and challenge Nikki and have her blow it off and grant the challenge, just to have Charlotte shock her and become Divas Champion...I know it's "been done", but it would do the job this time, too...besides, it's not like we're getting a lot of good, original, high-quality writing in the Divas division right now anyway). You need a good feuding pair to build the division around. I think you could have AJ (I don't know her contract situation and, considering who she's married to, I don't know how that plays out into her career) and Paige for a while and throw in Nattie and Charlotte and Naomi (I think that's the Funkadactyl that can actually wrestle). You're going to be bringing in Sasha Banks and Bayley and Becky Lynch soon enough, anyway. Leave the others to manage/valet.

4. ?????????
5. Profit

The fact of the matter is we got spoiled during the AE (and a little later) by having a decent number of Divas that could both wrestle and valet (Trish, Lita, Mickie) and there probably are a few on the roster who have that capability now (I've already mentioned Nattie, but AJ and Naomi can valet, so could Paige), but the division's been watered down not by female wrestlers who can't valet well, but by valets who can't wrestle well.

Then, like most of WWE, somebody's going to have to get in there who understands story structure and doesn't have an ego about who's on top or who "should be" the number one guy and who can just write well.

Women's wrestling doesn't make money. 9 out of 10 fans watching at home or live don't want to see it. I've said it before, women's wrestling logically shouldn't be a thing, really. There isn't much of a market for it. A very tiny niche market I suppose, but if you fall into that category check out one of the women's promotions that @Snowman assures me are so great.

I made a big thread a while back on why WWE should stop pretending to care about women's wrestling and go back to using them like they did in the 80s/early 90s and just have them around as GFs/Valets that can be used to advance a storyline, can't find it now doe.

Let's be real, someone like Miss Elizabeth being involved in a Hogan/Macho feud brought more eyes to WWF than any females actually wrestling ever did.

I actually would be okay with that. I think they need more managers/valets and such because some of these guys need someone else to do the talking for them and the story lines are always great. On top of that I wouldn't have to feel embarrassed whenever the girls come out to "wrestle".

Also, I appreciate the information about other promotions for ladies wrestling and I'll be sure to check them out.

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